NDC pulls out of Ayawaso West Wougon by-election

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has withdrawn from the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election following a shooting incident at the residence of the party’s candidate, Mr Kwasi Delali Brempong.

The National Chairman of the NDC, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, said the decision was taken in consultation with Mr Brempong.

According to him, Mr Brempong is basically being “held hostage” in his house.

“Delali is traumatised. When I went, he was in the bedroom. He couldn’t move out,” he said in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM.

“He’s traumatised and he doesn’t understand why people should come and attempt to kill people in his residence,” he added.

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A stitch in time

According to Mr Ofosu Ampofo, the party’s decision to pull out of the election is “a stitch in time [because] we believe that this by-election should not take a single life and a single drop of blood.”

According to Mr Ofosu Ampofo, the party picked up intelligence on Wednesday that some group of persons had planned to stage an attack at the strongholds of the NDC in the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency.

“We picked intelligence yesterday that there were attempts to move some people to cause confusion and mayhem in places supposed to be the NDC stronghold in order to scare people to vote. We picked the intel but we thought we are deploying our people there and we believe that the security will be there to protect them but lo and behold the intel we picked has worked,” he claimed.

Loss of confidence

He said the party had lost confidence in the security agencies to protect lives and properties.

He alleged that the gunmen were masked security men driving in security vehicles.

“We haven’t seen by-election where masked security men have been deployed. The police are always there to provide security for everybody but this time we have no security people. We have people in national security t-shirt deployed at every polling station and the level of intimidation two hours into the election, we cannot guarantee what will happen to our agents when counting and darkness sets in.”

Injured persons

According to Mr Ampofo, about eight persons were injured in the shooting incident and were sent to the Legon Hospital for medical attention.

“I visited them at the Legon hospital and according to the doctors, two of them are in critical condition and are being transferred to 37 or the police hospital,” he said.